South Africa’s Hekkie Budler was stopped in the ninth round by defending WBC and WBA light flyweight champion Kenshiro Teraji of Japan on Monday afternoon.
The time was 2:19.
At the time of stoppage the judges’ scorecards were, Raul Caiz 80-72, Jose Manzur 79-73 and judge Joe Scobie also 79-73.
According to the judges scorecards, one would assume that it was a completely one-sided fight.
However, this was not a true reflection of the fight as Budler, 35, pushed forward scoring with right jabs to the head against the stronger champion.
Both fighters came out fast in round one, throwing punches as the champion possibly did enough to shade the round.
This was the pattern of fight throughout with the courageous Budler (107.75lbs) fighting back as he threw combination punches to the head against the ever advancing 31year-old Teraji (107.25lbs).
Even though the champion's defence was shaky at times he was never hurt by any of the punches piercing his defence.Â
The champion, who suffered a cut on his forehead after a clash of heads in the fifth round, kept talking to Budler though out the fight
Budler never gave up but it was the strength of the champion that came to the fore as he eventually backed up Budler against the ropes in the ninth round and battered the challenger before the referee Jose Guadalupe stepped in the stop the fight.
Teraji improved his record 22-1; 14 and Budler’s record dropped to 35-5; 11.
On the same card Japanese southpaw Junto Nakatani, who was defending his WBO junior bantamweight title for the first time, dominated Mexico’s Argi Cortes to retain the title with wide margins.
The scores were 119-106 twice and 118-107.
The challenger was down twice in the fifth round and once in the ninth round.